No Time to Die

by Kira Peikoff

  The next morning, upon entering the cafeteria, the four of them were greeted with thunderous applause. Beneath the low ceilings, about thirty people stood up as though giving a standing ovation. Next to rows of plain wooden benches and tables straight out of a summer camp mess hall, they whooped and cheered. They looked evenly split between men and women, roughly thirty to seventy years old. Zoe traded a glance with Theo, aware for the first time that they were by far the youngest people here.

  He seemed amused, flashing a thumbs-up at the small crowd. But she couldn’t help feeling caught off guard, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Overwhelmed by homesickness the previous night, she hadn’t slept more than an hour in her strange new bed, resulting in a lingering feeling of unease.

  “Sorry,” Galileo whispered in her ear. “It’s the tradition to welcome new people.”

  Zoe looked at Natalie to gauge her level of embarrassment, but she was cupping her hand over her mouth. “Helen?”

  A petite, grinning older woman with a gray bun emerged from the crowd, rushed toward them, and threw her arms around Natalie.

  “You made it!” she said, turning to Galileo. “You did it!”

  “I told you we would.”

  Natalie clutched her friend’s hand. “It’s really you.”

  “Who did you expect?”

  She shook her head with a smile.

  “Wait till you see the labs. You’re going to flip out.”

  Helen turned to Theo, gazing up at his lanky six-foot frame. “Sweetie, did you grow again?”

  He shrugged. “Nice to see you.”

  They hugged, then she crouched to Zoe’s height. “And you must be Zoe Kincaid.”

  She stuck out her hand and Zoe shook it, aware of the other woman’s inquisitive once-over. The whole room, she noticed, was watching her. Studying her. She wasn’t sure whether to feel creeped out or delighted.

  “I’m happy to be here,” she said loudly, as much to the room as to Helen. “So when do we get down to business?”

  The crowd laughed, and another burst of applause broke out. She smiled, starting to enjoy the spotlight. Here, she didn’t need to explain, shield, admit, or deny her condition. On her own terms, for the first time, she could belong.

  “Without further ado then,” Galileo said, “let me introduce you to the aging team. Guys, do you want to come forward?”

  Eight researchers stepped apart from the crowd—men and women, young and old, white, black, Asian, and Latino. All wore expressions of pride and gave a little bow or nod as Galileo called out their names and expertise.

  “Dr. James Wong, genetics of aging with a focus on gene expression at specific developmental stages.

  “Dr. Karen Rosenstein, genetics of aging with a focus on temporal order and physiological integrity.

  “Dr. Susan Holmes, neuroendocrinology with a focus on the role of neurotransmitters in hippocampal function.

  “Dr. Nina Hernandez, immunobiology with a focus on systems maintenance and function.

  “Dr. Peter Daley, biochemistry with a focus on molecular measurements and metabolic status.

  “Dr. Terrance Crouse, radiology, for MRI and CT scans.

  “Dr. Richard Lee, biostatistics, for modeling and evaluating the data.

  “Dr. Gina Patterson, medical anthropology, for anatomical measurements.”

  Zoe watched in awe, trying to take it all in. Their individual specialties sounded like Chinese to her, but Natalie’s jubilation grew with each one. At the end Galileo gestured to her.

  “And as you all already know, Dr. Natalie Roy. Genetics with a special interest in antagonistic pleiotropy and aging. Together, with Zoe, our dream team is finally complete.”

  More thunderous applause. They were certainly an enthusiastic group, Zoe thought. Not much like her image of scientists as antisocial and repressed. When the clapping died down, Galileo addressed Natalie. “What are your first steps going to be?”

  She cleared her throat, looking down at Zoe. “To collect your blood sample. I suggest we start chromosome testing using karyotyping analysis.”

  The two geneticists, Dr. Wong and Dr. Rosenstein, raised challenging hands.

  “I know,” Natalie acknowledged, “it’s unlikely we’ll find anything that way.” She turned back to Zoe, translating the unspoken exchange. “Because karyotyping visualizes only large chromosomal abnormalities. Probably your mutation is very small and requires another way to be detected. So next I would do CGH microarray, yes?”

  Dr. Wong seemed pleased. “That’s what I was going to suggest.”

  Zoe was desperate to keep up. It was hard to fathom the level of knowledge that these superhuman people possessed. “Which is?”

  Natalie sighed. “You won’t get this, but microarray works by exploiting the ability of a given mRNA molecule to bind specifically to the DNA template from which it originated. By using an array containing many of your DNA samples, we can determine in a single experiment, the expression levels of hundreds or thousands of genes within a cell. The amount of mRNA bound to the spots on the microarray is precisely measured with a computer, generating a profile of gene expression in the cell.”

  Zoe almost laughed. That was supposed to make sense to her?

  “And if that doesn’t yield anything,” piped up Dr. Rosenstein, “we’ll sequence your genome looking for partial point mutations.” She raised her eyebrows at Natalie for confirmation.

  “That’s right,” Natalie said, pinching her index finger and thumb together as if she were squeezing a grain of rice. “Those are subtle changes in single genes—the smallest changes and the hardest to find. If you have a weird variant around genes that control developmental rate, that might be meaningful and will give us a locus to investigate further.”

  “So basically,” Zoe said, throwing her arms wide then drawing her palms closer together, “you’re looking for the biggest stuff first, then going smaller and smaller.”

  “Exactly.” Natalie turned to the team. “She’s a bright one, so watch out.”

  Eight people shot her smiles as they gathered around Natalie, chatting about their experiments. In no time, the whole group swept out the door toward the labs, leaving behind cooled plates of eggs and toast on the cafeteria’s long wooden tables.

  Galileo hung back with Zoe and Theo. “You guys going to be okay without me?”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Where are you going?”

  “Other business. I won’t be back for a while.”

  She tried to hide her disappointment, but apparently did a poor job because Theo’s arm fell around her shoulders, weighty and reassuring.

  “No biggie,” he said. “We’ll stick together.”

  She gave him a shy smile, her pulse quickening. Maybe this land of possibilities had even more in store for her than she was counting on.

  CHAPTER 24

  The brick house was a one-bedroom wedged in among a row of look-alikes on a forgettable suburban block in Queens, New York. As soon as he drove up, Les could tell that it was a lower-class neighborhood, filled with patchy front lawns, cheap old cars, and broken bottles in the gutter. He was all too familiar with this kind of living—the kind where drunken screaming fights were rampant, where the neighbors hardly bothered to call the cops if a brawl broke out.

  The sky was dark. He got out of his car, walked to the door, and knocked, holding his briefcase under his arm. After a few seconds, a beefy man opened the door a crack and poked his tan face out. His hostile expression appeared to soften as he sized up Les’s elegant suit and tie.

  “Who’re you?”

  Les said his name. “Chief of the Bioethics Committee. Pleased to meet you.” He flashed his badge inside his jacket. “And are you Jasper Haynes, prison guard at the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center?”

  “Yeah. What can I do for you?”

  “Mind if I come in and ask you a few questions about one of your former inmates?”

  “Not at all. The place i
s kinda dirty, though.”

  “No prob.”

  Les walked in and found himself in a dining room that smelled of McDonald’s fries. A red and white bag sat crumpled on the table next to a half-eaten cheeseburger and a large soda. Behind the table stood a kitchen with checkered wallpaper, outdated appliances, and a sink full of dishes. It opened onto a carpeted living room furnished with a sagging couch and a cluster of video game consoles at the base of a flat-screen TV, which was currently blasting a baseball game. On the wall above it was a framed poster of Muhammad Ali standing triumphantly over a prostrate opponent.

  Les cleared his throat as he sat down on one of the dining table’s wooden chairs. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner. This won’t take long.”

  “It’s cool. Want something to drink?”

  “Water would be great, thanks.”

  As Haynes turned and headed to the kitchen, Les slipped the plastic lid off his host’s soda cup, dropped in two small white tablets and replaced the lid, then sat back against his chair and fiddled with his BlackBerry. When Haynes returned with his water, Les took the glass with a smile. “Cheers,” he said, touching it to the soda cup.

  Haynes lifted his cup and took a swig. “So, what’s this all about?”

  “I want to talk to you about Natalie Roy.”

  “The woman who checked out a couple days ago?”

  “You mean, was bailed out?”

  “From my little hotel.” The guard grinned, showing off a row of crooked bottom teeth. “Except instead of paying to stay, you gotta pay to get out.”

  Les’s warmth vanished. “So this is all a joke to you, huh?”

  “What?”

  “You think it’s funny that now she’s on the run?”

  “No, I—”

  “Do you know who she is?”

  The guard squinted and rubbed his forehead. “Sorry, I suddenly don’t . . .”

  His eyes lost focus as he stared into the distance, his face draining. Les was sure he was going to pass out, but instead he laid his head down, cheek to the table. His eyes closed and his fleshy lips parted. A thin trail of drool slid out the corner of his mouth. Through his open mouth, he inhaled deep, slow breaths.

  The television was still blaring the baseball game. It was obnoxiously loud. And just what Les had in mind. He flipped open his briefcase and surveyed its contents with satisfaction. Then he pulled on latex gloves, selected a coil of twine, and went to stand next to the sleeping guard.

  “She’s evil,” Les said softly in his ear. “And you let her go free.” He coaxed the guard’s limp arms behind his chair and worked the twine around his wrists, then his ankles. His prisoner offered little resistance, just a few impotent grunts. It wasn’t until Les stuffed a cloth gag into his mouth and fastened silver tape over it that his eyes fluttered opened—and registered terror. He tried to thrash his limbs and scream, but Les tapped him on the shoulder with something cold and sharp. A single glance at it made his body go still.

  It was the blade of a pocketknife.

  Les plunked it onto the table and spun it hard, so its blunt edge cut circles through the air. He stopped it when the point was aligned with the guard’s chest.

  “I want to play a little game,” he said. “But it won’t be fun if you don’t play along, so I’m counting on you, okay?”

  The guard tried to form a few muffled words.

  “Just nod your head, idiot.”

  He nodded, his pupils dilating.

  “Good. Now here are the rules: When I remove your gag, you will not scream. Otherwise . . .” He ran his gloved finger along the blade. “I really don’t think you want that. You with me so far?”

  The guard nodded again. His eyes were bulging now, forcing his heavy lids open. Les was having fun. He pulled his briefcase within reach.

  “I brought a little picnic for you.” Inside was an array of food and drink—a single-serve carton of milk, a bag of mixed nuts, a plastic container of shrimp, a hard-boiled egg, and a cup of strawberries.

  “I couldn’t help noticing your EpiPen sticking out of your shirt when you were photographed outside the jail,” he went on. “You know, when you let that bitch off. And now no one can find her, or the guy who picked her up, or the girl they kidnapped. Which left me to wonder, what are you so deathly allergic to?”

  The guard shook his head wildly and thrashed again, nearly knocking himself—and the chair—over.

  “Remember our rules,” Les said, stroking the blade. He wrinkled his nose. “No one wants a mess. Now, I hope you’re still hungry after that Big Mac. What should we try first?”

  The guard had given up struggling and was staring ahead, refusing to look at the food.

  “You don’t want to play? Fine. I’ll choose.” Les opened the container of shrimp and curled his lip. “I can’t stand that fishy smell, can you?” He sniffed it. “I think this might have gone bad in the heat. Sorry about that.”

  He ripped the tape off the guard’s lips and removed the cloth to stuff in two pink, wilting shrimps. Before the guard could spit them out, Les forced his mouth closed and kept his hand over it.

  “Now chew.”

  With a disgusted look, he did. Then spat all the pieces into Les’s hand. Les shoved them back inside and pinched his nose closed. “Swallow, God damn it!”

  Haynes obeyed, muttering curses into his gloved hand.

  “What was that? You want to wash it down with some milk? Here.”

  Again Les pinched the guard’s nose as he brought the carton to his lips, forced them open, and poured. The milk spilled onto his chin and coated his tongue white. Les pressed his lips closed as he swallowed. They stared at each other. His prisoner regarded him with a look of pure hatred. Nothing happened.

  “You’re not the first person I’ve had to punish,” Les said. “But you are just as idiotic as the last guy. Do you want to hear how he died?”

  The guard scrunched up his face and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  “No? I’ll tell you anyway. His name was Eliot Shipley.” Les paused as a smile of amusement came to his lips. “I’ve never told this to anyone before. But I feel like I can talk to you. Trust you.” He spun the knife around on the table again, enjoying its flash of silver.

  The guard averted his gaze and focused instead on his lap, where drops of milk had left dark wet circles on his shorts.

  “So this guy,” Les went on, “he was a pretty big jerk. A research scientist who made drugs that ended up killing innocent people. Like my mom.”

  He swallowed hard as the recollection assaulted him. How could he have known then, back when he was in charge of the FDA’s division of drugs for rare diseases, that the drug he himself approved for a clinical trial to help her would actually end up killing her? And not just killing her, but torturing her. She had suffered for years hoping for a cure, and when a new drug application came along claiming to neutralize the mutant gene responsible for Huntington’s disease, Les had jumped at it. He should have known to look for the cheap shortcuts that Panex Pharmaceuticals might take to serve its corporate interests—the bottom line drove them like a steamroller over any measly human lives that stood in the way. But he had been naive approving that trial, and even pulling strings so his mother could take part.

  For twenty-three days after trying the drug, she had lain paralyzed but conscious, a panicked prisoner of her own body. Those weeks would haunt Les for the rest of his life.

  Thanks to his mother’s death and a few others who had suffered a similar fate in the early trials, the FDA had mandated that a warning label on the bottle would list possible “rare side effects,” which made Panex happy because the drug still got approved over Les’s objections. He came to see that the whole enterprise of drug development and clinical trials was a corrupt machine, favoring exploitation of the poor and vulnerable who could never really understand what they were getting into, nor whose ends they were there to serve.

  “The point is,” Les said to the guard, �
�someone had to pay for what she went through. It was only fair. So Eliot was mauled to death by his own chimpanzees. Left alone overnight while they shredded his body to pieces. The mess of blood and guts was so bad the next day that the police could barely tell his remains were human.”

  The guard thrashed against his twine with wide-eyed terror. Les grabbed the knife and pointed it at his neck. He grew still.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “yours will be much, much cleaner. Let’s keep things moving. Shall we try the nuts?” Les opened the ziplock bag and selected a few peanuts from the almonds, walnuts, and cashews. “My personal favorite,” he said as he parted the guard’s lips once more. “Nothing like a good peanut butter sandwich, right?”

  The guard moved to chomp down on his fingers, but Les was too quick. He dropped the peanuts in and shoved his jaw closed. The guard squirmed with all his might, trying to spit and kick and bite. Still Les managed to keep his mouth shut with the peanuts inside.

  It was enough.

  First his lips expanded as if an invisible pump were inflating them. Then he coughed violently, his eyes filled with panic. Les stepped back to let nature take its course. It didn’t take long, only a minute more of struggling and wheezing, gasping and choking. His face turned a deep shade of blue. Tears ran down his cheeks. He gurgled at Les with pathetic urgency, his eyebrows lifting up and down as if they were flailing. Soon the whimpering eased, the struggling against his restraints subsided. A few incoherent sounds escaped his obscenely swollen lips. Then his head dropped to the table and was still.

  “Someone had to take the fall,” Les said.

  The fugitives had embarrassed him by escaping from that suburb in Ohio, and if Natalie hadn’t been let off so easily, none of it would have happened.

  Someone always had to take the fall when Les was wronged.

  And he could think of no better person to take the blame for the fall than Galileo—the man who thrived off illegal human science experiments. When the Network came on the scene two years back, Les realized he had the perfect setup at last to extract his revenge for his mother’s death. One simple copycat postcard arriving at his own office, and bam!—everyone on the Bioethics Committee believed Galileo was taking responsibility for the vicious chimp incident.